The fishermen know
that the sea is dangerous and
the storm terrible, but they have never found these
dangers sufficient reasons for remaining ashore.

-Vincent Van Gogh

Atisha is not an escapist.
He does not teach escapism, he does not teach you to escape from
situations which are not to your liking. He says: you have to
learn to function in Bodhicitta, in Buddha-consciousness, in all
kinds of situations - in the marketplace, in the monastery; with
people or alone in a cave; with friends or with enemies; with
family, familiar people, and with strangers; with men and with
animals. In all kinds of situations, you have to learn to
function in compassion, in meditation - because all these
experiences of different situations will make your Bodhicitta
more and more ripe.
Don't escape from any situation - if you escape, then something
will remain missing in you. Then your Bodhicitta will not be that
ripe, will not be that rich. Live life in its
multi-dimensionality.

Religion is a science in the sense that it is the purest knowing.
...It is the greatest adventure there is. It is a call and a
challenge to all those who have any courage, any guts, any
intelligence.

* From The Book of Wisdom : Discourses on Atisha`s Seven
Points of Mind Training, by Osho

"The
path of developing loving-kindness and compassion is to be
patient with the fact that you're human and that you make
mistakes.
That's more important than getting it right.

It seems to work only if you're aspiring to give yourself a
break,
to lighten up, as you practice generosity, discipline and
insight.

As with the rest of the teachings, you can't win and you can't
lose.
You don't get to just say, 'Well, since I am never able to do it,
I'm not going to try.'
You are never able to do it and still you try. And, interestingly
enough, that adds up to something; it adds up to loving kindness
for
yourself and others.

You look out your eyes and you see yourself wherever you go. You
see
all these people who are losing it, just like you do.

Then, you see all these people who catch themselves and give you
the
gift of fearlessness.

You say, 'Oh, wow, what a brave one--he or she has caught
themselves.' You begin to appreciate even the slightest gesture
of
bravery on the part of others because you know it's not easy, and
that inspires you tremendously.

That's how we can really help each other.

~ Pema Chodron

From the article, "The Answer to Anger & Other Strong
Emotions"
published in the magazine Shambhala Sun, March 2005

"Shariputta, does it occur to any of my
followers to think that after they have known full enlightenment
they should lead all beings to nirvana?"

"No, Honored One."

"But that should be their intention. They should not be too
caught up with themselves to believe that. A glowworm or firefly
does not think that its light could illuminate the continent of
India or even radiate over it. In the same way, the followers do
not think that they can, after obtaining full enlightenment, lead
all beings to nirvana. But the sun, when it has risen, radiates
its light over the whole of India. Just so, an awakened follower
when he is fully enlightened, without even consciously attempting
to, leads all beings to nirvana."

There is a looker-on who sits behind my eyes. It
seems he has seen things in ages and worlds beyond
memory's shore, and those forgotten sights glisten
on the grass and shiver on the leaves. He has seen
under new veils the face of the one beloved, in twilight
hours of many a nameless star. Therefore his sky seems
to ache with the pain of countless meetings and partings,
and a longing pervades this spring breeze, - the longing
that is full of the whisper of ages without beginning.

Those obstructed by nothingness, clinging one-sidedly to
this principle, sit blankly to clear away sense objects and
think that the Way is herein. None of them seeks the secret
of nurturing the three treasures. Though they speak of
reaching nothingness, this is really not the Way. The ulti-
mate Way is not in reification, nor simple nothingness.
The mystic essential is to balance openness and realism.

posted by Gill Eardley to Allspirit

Q:
'Vimalakirti dwells in silence. Manjushri offers praise.' How can
they have
really entered the Gateway of
Non-Duality?

A: The Gateway of Non-Duality is your original Mind. Speech
and silence are
relative concepts belonging to the
ephemeral sphere. When nothing is said,
nothing is manifested. That is why
Manjushri offered praise.

Q: Vimalakirti did not speak. Does this imply that sound is
subject to cessation?

A: Speech and silence are one! There is no distinction
between them.
Therefore is it written: 'Neither the
true nature nor the root of
Manjushri's hearing are subject to
cessation.' Thus, the sound of the
Tathagata's voice is everlasting, nor
can there be any such reality as the
time before he began to preach or the
time after he finished preaching. The
preaching of the Tathagatha is identical
with the Dharma he taught, for
there is no distinction between the
preaching and the thing preached; just as
there is none between such varied
phenomena as the Glorified and Revealed
Bodies of the Buddha, the Bodhisattvas,
the Srvakas, the world-systems with
their mountains and rivers, or water,
trees, birds, forests and the rest. The
preaching of the Dharma is at one and
the same time both vocal and silent.
Though one talks the day long, no word
is spoken. This being so, only Silence
belongs to the Essential."

~i lost the source for
this quote. ,^)) But who needs more words anyway?

posted to Daily Dharma

Book Excerpts

from

"Open
Mouth Already a Mistake"

by Richard Shrobe, ( Zen Master
Wu Kwang )

Don't Know is Closest to It

For those of you that are new to our style of practice and
Zen practice in general, I will now introduce you to the practice
of "not knowing". Usually, people want to learn something, to
know something. Zen practice actually moves in the opposite
direction; from knowing to not knowing.
This not knowing is represented in the classical Zen literature
by a famous story about Zen Master Poep An. Poep An was one
of the main figures of Chinese Zen during the T'ang Dynasty,
which was the Golden Age of Zen in China. He lived around 900
AD. At the time this story takes place, Peop An was not yet a master.
Making a Zen pilgrimage didn't mean the same thing as traveling
means to us today because, of course, there were no airplanes,
trains, or buses, just ox carts or foot travel, for the most part, and
most of the main centers were in the mountains. So, the journey
to call on the various Zen Masters was a rather arduous one.
in and of itself, the hardship of travelling hundreds of miles over
every kind of terrain, not knowing where you would sleep that night,
or where you would find food, was a practice in facing oneself. This
was a practice, as the old Zen Masters say, in "putting it all down."
Poep An came to a particular monastery and greeted Master Ji
Jang, who was to become his final teacher. Ji Jang asked Peop An,
"You're travelling all around China; what's the meaning of your
pilgrimage?" Initially, Peop An felt stuck and momentarily all thinking
stopped. Then he said, "don't know". Ji Jang responded, "Not
knowing is most intimate". Sometimes you'll see this translated as:
"Not knowing is closest to it." So, Poep An decided, I'd better stay
here and see what this guy has to offer.
After spending some time at the monastery being introduced into
this "don't know", Poep An decided he would continue on his
pilgrimage. He told the Master, "Tomorrow I'll be leaving here to
become a wandering monk again". Ji Jang said, "Oh, do you think
your ready?". Poep An said, "Certainly!" "Then let me ask you a
question," said Ji Jang. "You are fond of the saying that 'that the
whole world is created by the mind alone'. So, you see those big
boulders over there in the rock garden? Are they inside your mind
or outside?" Poep An said, "They're inside my mind. How could
anything be outside it?" The Zen Master said, "Oh, well, then you'd
better get a good night's sleep because it's going to be hard
travelling with all those rocks inside your mind"! Peop An was
undone and taken aback, and stayed there with this Master and
finally attained great awakening.
This one sentence, "don't know" or "Not knowing is most intimate",
is very much at the heart of our practice. The word intimacy is also
quite interesting. Closeness. Becoming one with something. Really
being able to fathom something. And, of course, many of our
difficulties come about by holding on to some conception of
knowing, or some opinion, or some dualistic attitude that seperates
us from our experience. So, as we cultivate and enter into this
attitude of not knowing, true intimacy becomes a possiblity, true
at-oneness with our own experience and with the world that we find
ourselves in.